Greece scours shipwreck site; hundreds feared drowned in boat's hold
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[June 15, 2023]
By Stamos Prousalis
KALAMATA, Greece (Reuters) -Rescuers scoured the seas off Greece on
Thursday following a shipwreck that killed at least 79 migrants, as
hopes of survivors dwindled and fears grew that hundreds more, including
children, may have drowned trapped inside the crowded vessel's hold.
Reports suggested between 400 and 750 people had packed the fishing boat
that capsized and sank early on Wednesday morning in deep waters about
50 miles (80 km) from the southern coastal town of Pylos. Greek
authorities said 104 survivors had been brought ashore.
As it began to flounder late on Tuesday night, people on the vessel's
crowded outer deck repeatedly turned down attempted assistance from a
Greek coast guard boat that was shadowing it, saying they wanted to
reach Italy, according to Greek authorities.
"When you are faced with such a situation... you need to be very careful
in your actions," coast guard spokesperson Nikos Alexiou told state
broadcaster ERT.
"You cannot carry out a violent diversion on such a vessel with so many
people on board... without any sort of cooperation."
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As Greece declared three days of mourning, authorities said it was
unclear how many had been aboard. They were investigating an account
from a European rescue-support charity that there could have been 750
people on the 20- to 30 metre-long (65- to 100-foot) boat.
The U.N.'s International Organization for Migration said initial reports
suggested up to 400 people were aboard.
Citing initial testimonies from survivors, Save the Children charity
said around 100 children were believed to be in the vessel's hold.
"(EU) member states have gone to extraordinary lengths to close off all
routes to children and their families seeking safety in Europe. Often
their only option is to take dangerous journeys by boat," said Daniel
Gorevan, senior advocacy adviser at the charity.
"The fact that people continue to die in the Mediterranean should be a
wakeup call for EU governments," he said, warning that the Med risked
becoming "the deadliest migration route in the world."
Of the 104 survivors so far transferred by the coast guard to the Greek
port city of Kalamata, most were men, authorities said. They revised
their overnight death toll to 78 from 79.
'OUR LAST NIGHT ALIVE'
On Thursday, bodies of the victims were transferred to a cemetery near
Athens for DNA tests. The search operation will continue for as long as
needed, the coast guard said.
Government sources said chances of retrieving the sunken vessel, which
had set off from the Libyan port of Tobruk, were remote, because the
area of international waters where the incident occurred is one of the
Mediterranean's deepest.
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![](../images/061523PIX/news_z44.jpg)
Migrants who were rescued at open sea
off Greece along with other migrants, after their boat capsized, are
seen outside a warehouse used as a shelter, at the port of Kalamata,
Greece, June 15, 2023. REUTERS/Stelios Misinas
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Aerial pictures released by the Greek coast guard showed dozens of
people on the boat's upper and lower decks looking up, some with
arms outstretched, hours before it sank.
Alarm Phone, which operates a trans-European network supporting
rescue operations, said it received alerts from people on board a
ship in distress off Greece late on Tuesday.
It said it had alerted Greek authorities and spoke to people on the
vessel who estimated there were up to 750 people on board and
appealed for help, and that the captain had fled on a small boat.
Government officials said that before capsizing and sinking around 2
a.m. on Wednesday, the vessel's engine stopped and it began veering
from side to side.
Independent refugee activist Nawal Soufi said in a Facebook post
that she was contacted by migrants aboard the vessel in the early
hours of Tuesday, and that she had been in contact with them until
11 p.m.
"The whole time they asked me what they should do and I kept telling
them that Greek help would come. In this last call, the man I was
talking to expressly told me: 'I feel that this will be our last
night alive,'" she wrote.
Greece is one of the main routes into the European Union for
refugees and migrants from the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
Under a conservative government in power until last month, Greece
has taken a harder stance on migration, building walled camps and
boosting border controls.
The country is currently governed by a caretaker administration
pending an election on June 25.
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Libya, which has had little stability or security since a
NATO-backed uprising in 2011, is a major launching point for those
seeking to reach Europe by sea, its people-smuggling networks mainly
run by military factions that control coastal areas.
The United Nations has registered more than 20,000 deaths and
disappearances in the central Mediterranean since 2014, making it
the most dangerous migrant crossing in the world.
(Additional reporting by Stelios Misinas in Kalamata, Lefteris
Papadimas, Renee Maltezou and Karolina Tagaris in Athens, Angelo
Amante in Rome; Writing by Michele Kambas; editing by John
Stonestreet and Hugh Lawson)
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